Chipboard Bridges

At the beginning of any year I feel a little lost with records. I don't buy an awful lot and try to make sense of where my buying habits are at that point in time. I have no issue with doing this, and it allows me to buy stuff that I either forgot about or just put off. With that in mind, here is a release from around 6 years ago that I meant to buy but never did until a week or two ago. 

Owen - Abandoned Bridges - Polyvinyl Records - 1st Press - Black /? 

I haven't got a clue how many of this record exist. I know there was a limited variant on White /1000, and I know more than 1000 of this exist. Past that, I'm not even sure the dudes at Polyvinyl would know. The chipboard sleeve is something a little different, and it looks great with the minimal-ish art and insert design.

Back Cover // B-Side 

One new song (at the time), and one cover of a Wilco song which is really neat. 

The centre labels match the art, designed by Jaime Anderson (who has done some wonderful illustration over the years!) and the jacket design was handled by Paul Koob who has worked on a bunch of Owen and Polvinyl related releases.

Insert consisting of lyrics and credits. No thanks. It's cool to see Nate Kinsella was in on this one, he's played on a few Owen releases and I'm sure he had something to do with Joan Of Arc too?

Hype sticker on the sleeve. Free sticker with the order. There was also an Watermelon flavoured Airhead, but my Nephew got to that before I could get my camera out. 

I know I could've bought this from Discogs, and got a White copy, but I ordered from the label with a slight hope of scoring that promo Beach Slang 7''. I did not. Nevermind though, this record has been getting a lot of love! 

Cadwyn O Flodau

Sometimes I take photos of a bunch of stuff, and one or two items slip through the cracks, and before you know it months have passed by and I've lost things to say on the matter so the potential post gets deleted. This happened with the newest Chain Of Flowers cassette, but after hitting this record hard over the past few days I've decided to salvage the photos and post. 

Chain Of Flowers - Chain Of Flowers - Alter - 1st Press - Black Shell /100 

Alter put this up a while after the LP pre-order, and the cassette has always appealed to me more with this band, as all the releases are made available on this format. Chained // Spit hasn't yet made it to vinyl so the completest in me opted for this option. I'll grab the vinyl eventually mind. 

Printed labels on the shells are neat, and the band name translated into Welsh to act as an album title is a nice touch. The slightly muddy production really lends itself to this format, I'm just surprised it wasn't released through the singer's Swine Language label. 

Tracklisting sits on the inside of the J-Card along with the band personnel and credits. It's crazy to think that this record was recorded around 18 months prior to the release. 

I put this record on a lot more over the last few weeks, and it sounds more beautiful each time. Every time this happens I get an urge to pick up something that I've not given the attention it probably deserved. 

Cheers!

Of Sorrow Grey And Deep

It's been a little while since we had a new release from Rot In Hell; but as always from this band it comes looking a little quirky and sounding incredible.

Rot In Hell - Of Sorrow Black And Deep - Self Released - 1st Press - Military Grey Shells /67

This cover would look great on an LP; with the creepy dudes and the Process logo on the gates. Rot In Hell always deliver cool artwork, and this package in general is great. I would like to grab the demo and the Niu cassettes too, the demo packaging is mental. 

The shells are plain, and match the casing of the cassette which looks lovely. More process logos. Obviously. 

Inside the J-Card is a 4R take on the Process logo that is most commonly used by RIH. 

Not got a clue what the feast of Baba Yaga is, I know the Baba Yaga is a character in some European folklore who rides around with a pestle in the forest. Sounds like something they would be into. 

27/67 - hand stamped and numbered, with another logo sticker. Weirdly enough this is still available through their webstore but I can't imagine it'll be around for too much longer. 

More Dinosaur

Every few months I do another Dinosaur Jr. catch up post, and as usual I know nothing about the pressing info. All I know is that quite a few exist. 

First up is two copies of The Wagon, on the Blanco Y Negro label. Considering I don't even own every Dinosaur Jr. album or single, I now own 4 copies of this. Between the Sub Pop White copy, Glitterhouse Black and now the 7'' and 12'' of this Euro press. I prefer the art to this one, and it probably remains my favourite art from this band to date. I bought the 12'' cheap off Music Stack, and the 7'' was part of a bundle I bought on eBay along with the rest of the records in this post.

Next up is the Whatever's Cool With Me 12''

The whole bundle cost about what a copy of this is fetching at the moment, and again I'm a big fan of the art.

This is only the second coloured piece of Dinosaur Jr. vinyl that I own, and I'm still lusting after a copy of that Splatter I Bet On Sky, but this looks lovely in person with the bright pink labels as a cool contrast. 

Back Cover // B-Side 

This is the first of a couple records that come numbered. I'm not sure how many were made, but I ended up with number 6973. The poly sleeve also came stickered. I assume 10,000 is a safe number, but I really don't know for sure. 

Finally from this bunch is the Feel The Pain 7'', making a bunch of records all from Blaco Y Negro. 

The sleeve folds out into this super weird poster, as was the way with a few 7''s back in the day. I want to say it's weird but I'm into it, but that pretty much sums up my opinion of Dinosaur Jr anyway. 

5362/? 

Cheers!

Screened Years

So another quick post on a record I got for Christmas. This one was bought from Alan at Different Kitchen and it probably couldn't have been from anywhere else. There's a few cool things I like about this record a lot so let's dive in. 

Ampere - The First Five Years - No Idea Records - 1st Press - Mix /20 (Fest 14 Press) 

Now that pressing info is not entirely accurate. The story sits that this record was originally given away in the pre orders of the 1st Press of Ampere's LP 'Like Shadows' as No Idea like to do from time to time. 

Somewhere down the line, No Idea found around 20 spare copies of this bonus LP and made some screened covers for them and sold them at last years Fest. The leftovers went online after the weekend, and last time I checked this was still available.  

I believe that the original copies that came with Like Shadows also had a screened fold over style sleeve, but I never owned one so I can't be too sure! Maybe the colour of the sleeve or the ink was different on the older presses too?

Close up of the track-listing and NI logo. The typewriter font that this is printed with doesn't photograph up too well. 

This live photo takes up the first side of the insert. 

The other side is all of the lyrics, but a combination of textured card and the font makes it a difficult one to make out in a photograph. I thought this excerpt would be more interesting than most as it has the original designations of the songs on this LP. The Daitro split was one of those first records I saw that I fell in love with how it looked (for this genre at least), and I still need to pick a copy up. It comes along pretty cheap on Discogs so there's no real excuse! 

Deluxe Colo(u)rs

This record has fucked with me an awful lot. Before the new Coheed record dropped, I heard that it was a departure from the concept and I was almost hoping it would suck. I just wasn't prepared for such a radical change, until I got about 4 seconds into the LP and fell in love. 

I did buy the LP, but that's not important in comparison to what I'm on with today. I had a little Christmas money left over and decided I should drop it on this. This post will be really picture heavy and hopefully a little light on the words. I nearly did a video post for this, and still might yet but we will see. 

Coheed And Cambria - The Color Before The Sun - Limited Edition Deluxe Box Set - 300 Entertainment - 1st Press /? 

The box set is housed in a die-cut O-Card, and the first thing you are greeted with are two Hardback 'Coffee Table' books. All of the design was handled as a collaborative effort between Claudio Sanchez and Nick Steinhardt from Touche Amore. Nick's design has been mentioned a fair amount in this blog, and this is my favourite of his work outside of Touche Amore. 

A quick spine view of both books. 

On to the first (well really it's the second, but this seemed like the best place to start) book, titled 'The Unraveling Palette Of Dawn'. The cover is letter-pressed and textured in a similar way to the Garrod & Lofthouse sleeve of Unknown Pleasures. The central image is of Claudio's house 'Big Beige', with 10 smaller images surrounding, each representing a track off the record. 

Inside the cover is a certificate of authenticity. If you pre-ordered then it came signed, but I jumped on late. No worry though as it looks incredible without! 

Inside the book. 40 pages of words and photographs, and it's pretty incredible. 

This book tells the story of the writing of the record, picking up from the final touches of the 'Afterman' records and spans a few years. This is told by Chondra Echert (Claudio Sanchez' wife), and is accompanied by a bunch of photographs documenting their moves and the birth of their son. 

The Bag On Line was the original working title of the Amory Wars, and was taken from a shop in Paris. The other photos I believe are from Florida where they spent a little time. 

Some more photographs, the main one on the right taken in their 4th Street Apartment where some of the album was demoed when Claudio and Chondra rented out the Big Beige and it got turned into a Grow House (it's a long story that probably requires a full read through of the book). 

Some more of the story. 

At the back of the book is a little embossed area where a Keywork key sits. Apparently you can get this key cut to fit any lock, but in here it will stay. 

The first book (that I should've started with) is the lyric book with expanded art, and holds all of the musical content too. The art is the same from the LP minus the text and it looks truly beautiful. 

Similar to The Unraveling Palette Of Dawn, you get a title page. 

Each song comes with a full lyrics page and individual art, and also another page with the title behind another load of art. It's hard to photograph, but the title is also spot UV finished. 

You can see it for the track 'Colors' here. 

Art related to the track 'Atlas'. 

The artwork related to this track is super cool, and potentially my favourite track from the album. 

Credits and band photo. A great thing about this record is Josh coming back on drums after a good few years away. I recently watched 'The Fiction Will See The Real' documentary, and seeing him talking about being in the band was a little heartbreaking. His drumming is incredible too, and you can definitely hear him in this LP. 

The next few pages are the names of everyone who pre-ordered early, with the pages aptly titled 'Children of the Fence'. 

Table of Contents 

The discs are all held in an inside gatefold within the book, and you can see above what is contained. 

First up is the album on CD (I already have a CD copy as it was included with the LP, but that's not taken up permanent residence in the car). The lower CD is the Big Beige/ 4th Street demos; it follows the same track-listing as the album. I love hearing Coheed demos, and nothing has changed here as these have the same charm they always do with this band. 

Next up is the 7'', all copies pressed on clear. Bridge and Tunnel is a cool and lively tune, and the B-Side being an acoustic song. Both tracks are great, but each time I spin this I never put it away without repeating the B-Side a few times.

B-Side alongside 'The Physics Of Color' documentary. The little cutaways that the CD's/DVD/7'' fit in are lovely, and the little details in the background of them are really nice too. 

To round off this post, here is the back cover which is an aspect of the front cover. It all ties in nicely which I like. 

Alongside the box set you also get an Amory Platinum 'Children Of The Fence' membership that I really need to complete.  

Also, there is this super cool lapel pin. Throughout last year, I managed to grab a few enamel badges from some great bands, so it's nice to add this one to the fold. 

Whilst I was ordering, I couldn't help but add this to my cart. Super cute right? I saw these pop up on Instagram after a Comic Con the band did and instantly wanted one. Spoiled brat gratification is truly a wonderful thing. 

Here is a little explanation of The Dragonfly logo. 

Details 

I feel that I can't do this box set justice. For all of my enthusiasm and photographing I cannot how you everything this has to offer. I can't show you the studio where the record was tracked live that you see in the documentary. I can't show you every photo, or let you know my favourite parts of the story told. My only advice is if you love this band, and you're curious about this box set then just buy it. As someone who was super skeptical about this record, I'm completely in love. This band are no stranger to a box set, and this far in they're doing it better than most. A friend has the Year of The Black Rainbow deluxe as well as the Neverender Box Set, and they look lovely too!

Finally, I was going to do an entire post on the LP and still have all the photos to do it. But after all of this it seems a little redundant right?

It's been a long one, thank you for sticking through it with me!